Susan Granger’s review of “Ray” (Universal Pictures)
Ray Charles was an American legend – and I predict Jamie Foxx will be one of this year’s hottest Oscar contenders for his charismatic portrayal of this pioneering musical genius whose courage turned his troubled darkness and personal demons into a triumph of light. Born in 1930 in segregated rural Georgia, Ray Charles Robinson watched his younger brother die in a drowning accident and, two years later, went blind at the age of seven. Inspired by a self-reliant mother who insisted he learn to survive on his own, Charles claimed his destiny when he discovered the piano keyboard. At first, he imitated artists like Nat King Cole and Charles Brown. But as his career developed beyond the chitlin circuit, he blurred the distinctions between jazz, country, pop, rhythm and blues, blending them together with his own individual style. On the personal side, Charles was addicted to two things: heroin and women. And while this biography details his wife (Kerry Washington) and a couple of his romantic entanglements (Aunjanue Ellis, Regina King), it slyly skirts over the issue of his 12 illegitimate children. Director Taylor Hackford (“Dolores Claiborne,” “La Bamba”) spent 15 years working on this musical biographical drama with Ray Charles, who died earlier this year at the age of 73, and developed the episodic script with first-time screenwriter James L. White. The entire ensemble cast is terrific and credit music supervisor Curt Sobel for using original Ray Charles recordings for the soundtrack as Jamie Foxx nimbly lip-synchs and recreates Charles’ mannerisms – both at and away from the piano. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Ray” is a mesmerizing, memorable 9. As Ray Charles put it, “Soul is a way of life, but it is always the hard way.”
